Additive manufacturing (AM) is a term generally used to describe various manufacturing processes involving formation of an object through buildup of one or more materials. For example, one type of additive manufacturing process includes three-dimensional (3D) printing, which involves layer-by-layer deposition of building materials from a printing device. The building materials are usually deposited in a pre-determined shape and/or geometry corresponding to a desired shape of the object being formed. Once solidified or cured, the building materials form the object, with the pre-determined shape and/or geometry of the deposited building material providing a net or near-net shape of the object.
While some objects may be formed by depositing only the building material, the forming of many other objects also includes depositing a separate support material. The support material provides support to the building material during the additive manufacturing of the object, and may also guide vertical placement of subsequent building material layers. However, after completing the additive manufacturing, the support material must be removed to form the final object.
Although there are different methods for removing the support material from the final object, each method suffers from one or more drawbacks. For example, while some objects may be formed with a soluble support, removing the currently available soluble support materials often includes using harsh chemicals and/or requires long processing times. In addition to being dangerous and often expensive, the harsh chemicals may damage or degrade the building material, particularly when long processing times are employed. However, certain building materials are not compatible with the currently available soluble support materials due to compositional and/or processing incompatibilities. For these building materials, the non-soluble support is typically removed manually, which is difficult for complex objects and may also present safety concerns based upon the tools used for support removal. Furthermore, the tools may not be able to completely remove the support material from complex shapes without damage to the parts.
A solvent, a composite article, and a method of forming a composite article that show one or more improvements in comparison to the prior art would be desirable in the art.